Does anyone remember that Only Fools and Horses Episode, where Uncle Albert makes coffee instead of gravy and everyone dumps it all over their dinner without realising?

My mum did that once. Fortunately dinner was rescuable, but it took a long time before my brother trusted gravy again

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'A troth, by the way, is a small furry creature with fins, the offspring of a trout and a sloth. I often wonder what they saw in each other, but then I suppose the sloth, being upside down, would tend to have a different slant on things.'

That puts me in mind of my mother-in-law's gravy. Her gravy is absolutely horrible. It's basically just skimmed-off fat, with no thickener or seasoning added at all. At my first Thanksgiving dinner, she asked if I'd like some. Because I love gravy and I didn't know what hers was like, I happily said yes - and watched in horror as liquid fat was poured all over my dinner.

That puts me in mind of my mother-in-law's gravy. Her gravy is absolutely horrible. It's basically just skimmed-off fat, with no thickener or seasoning added at all. At my first Thanksgiving dinner, she asked if I'd like some. Because I love gravy and I didn't know what hers was like, I happily said yes - and watched in horror as liquid fat was poured all over my dinner.

My grandmother used to make gravy by washing the cooked roast under hot water with the gravy boat standing underneath it in the sink. That was your gravy. *shudder*

That puts me in mind of my mother-in-law's gravy. Her gravy is absolutely horrible. It's basically just skimmed-off fat, with no thickener or seasoning added at all. At my first Thanksgiving dinner, she asked if I'd like some. Because I love gravy and I didn't know what hers was like, I happily said yes - and watched in horror as liquid fat was poured all over my dinner.

My grandmother used to make gravy by washing the cooked roast under hot water with the gravy boat standing underneath it in the sink. That was your gravy. *shudder*

Haven't made it through all of these, but wanted to share a couple of mine. FTR - I have been in the kitchen (with Mom or Grandmas) since I was "knee high to a grasshopper" and cooking on my own pretty much since I was 10ish. I have had my share of not enough water in the pan and overcooked something or others.

The first summer that I worked as a cook in a summer camp kitchen. We cooked about 3/4 of the food - including bread and baked goodies - by scratch. It was the first day and we (the full kitchen staff of 6) needed to get the meal made for the staff lunch. So before the tour of the kitchen we were cooking. I had been put in charge of carrot cake. I dislike eating carrot cake, but was fine making it. I followed the directions to the T since I had not done large batch baking/cooking before. While weighing out the dry ingredients, I thought that the flour had a bit funny in texture but had been told that they used commodity flour so just thought it was a different quality than I was use to. The kitchen manager (KM) decided to wait until my cakes came out of the oven before we did the big tour. (we had the main kitchen, but also a downstairs storage area and packout room to inspect.) My cakes came out of the oven and I was horrified that they were so flat. KM said that we would check over the recipe after the tour to make sure that I had not forgotten anything like the baking powder. As we were going around the different stations of the kitchen, we stopped just before getting to the baking area to a bin under the scale that I had used for weighing the dry ingredients. "This is the Non-Fat Dried Milk that we use to make the hot chocolate/cocoa in the mornings..." As KM went on with that explanation, my eyes got really big and I almost burst into tears. "KM? I know what I did." Yep, I hadn't realized that the flour was over with the sugar (second bin next to it) and had thought that the NFD Milk was flour. So, basically I made a pudding cake. The camp director and most of the staff thought it was really moist. SIGH. It was a story mentioned even in my two summers as the assistant kitchen manager.

Oh, bad gravy stories. I went to Thanksgiving dinner once at a friend's, and her gravy was watery fatty broth. She said she did everything correctly (added flour/cold water mixture while the pan drippings were bubbling) and it never thickened. It was ... unfortunate.

I only recently learned how to make gravy from scratch - always used the jar or canned stuff, and I still keep a stash handy since my gravy can be hit or miss in terms of tastiness.

Yeah, I did not burn my chili con carne today!I have a bad habit at my new home with this stove+those pans (so my SO stove and pans) to turn it too high and forget about the things that have to cook for a long time. That being mostly my SO famous paste sauce, that, last time, ended up with a good thick burned bottom.

Anyway, since I went grocery shopping without seeing first what kind of spices we had I went the easy way and bought a pre made mix that turned to be a tad too spicy for me. So question, what can I add to tune down the spiciness? The only 'stand alone' spice I had was curcumin, I added a bit of it but didn't want to mess around too much.

I ended up adding a small piece of dark chocolate in my bowl during diner, it wasn't bad and helped with the spicy, but I'm not sure my SO would like the taste if I do it for the batch.

Dairy is my go-to for overly spicy food. Sour cream and or cheese work well.

Ha, this reminds me of my sister's kitchen disaster.

Once she made a batch of curry but couldn't understand why it was so tasteless. So she kept adding a chili powder. It kept getting hotter but still no taste. Then she realized that she forgot the salt. She didn't want to throw out her curry so kept eating it but with a glass of milk. She had to eventually throw it out because she ran out of milk.

Yeah, I did not burn my chili con carne today!... what can I add to tune down the spiciness? ...

I did that once with an overdose of a new name brand of strong chili powder and I just added a little tomato juice. It didn't exactly tone it down, but it did dilute it a little so it didn't seem so strong.